There are almost 200,000 white British boys, of whom 31,237 (16%) were from homes poor enough to qualify them for free school meals.

In the past, poor black boys have tended to have the weakest performance.

But this year 51.6% of black boys on free meals made the grade and the gap in their attainment compared with the national average, 20.2, was down from 21.8 in 2008.

Attainment was 49.7% among the weakest group of black boys, those from Caribbean backgrounds.

This left the white British boys on free school meals at the bottom. Even worse for the government is the fact that the attainment gap widened.

This has been a persistent problem for ministers.

Research shows that even children from affluent families who started out in the bottom ability group as toddlers overtake those from the poorest backgrounds who started out in the top ability group, by the time they are six or seven.

'No child should fall behind'

Schools Minister Vernon Coaker said of the overall results: "Let's face facts - primary school standards have been transformed over the last 12 years with 98,000 more 11-year-olds now reaching expected levels in English and maths regardless of their backgrounds.

"No-one would want to turn the clock back."

He said no child should fall behind at school and the government knew there was still more to do - which is why it had set out a comprehensive programme to close historic attainment gaps further.

"We're giving up to 600,000 seven to 15-year-olds one-to-one tuition from this term if they are falling behind in English and maths.

"And we are expanding the intensive 'Every Child early intervention programmes', for six-year-olds most at risk of falling behind in reading, writing and maths so they do not fall behind at the start of primary school."

3 comments:

In one respect, the results show an underlying truth. In many parts of the UK, the educational system has chronically neglected white Briton pupils every which way, while BME pupils are given social and educational leg-ups every which way.

Yet black pupils can only outperform whites by less than a mere 2 percentage points.

Hopefully a BNP Gov't will restore the educational level playing field where the innate academic superiority of the white pupils will once again be distinctly manifest.